Bruder
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: She's the only family he's got left. [edgeworth and franziska, pre-aa1]


Everything about the Von Karma household was cold. The floors were impeccably clean, the rugs all completely free of dust, giving it an empty, untouched feeling. And no matter how high the heater was turned up, the house was always cold.

"Miles. I have work to attend to. Will you watch Franziska while I am out?"

_"Ja, vater."_ His voice sounded hard and strained in German, like he was trying to cough something up and it just wouldn't come out. He knew Manfred would be more pleased if he responded in German, though.

"Only lived here for a month, and yet you are such a good speaker." Manfred ruffled Miles' hair, but there was nothing affectionate about it. "See to it that Franziska is cared for in the meantime." Every time Manfred left a room, he seemed to make it even colder.

Miles was going to retire to his room, since he knew three year old Franziska could very well take care of herself, but he felt a tugging on his sleeve. Looking down, he saw the little girl looking up at him. She was pretty, really, with bright eyes and hair that was a tone of ash blonde that was almost grey, as though she had aged far too fast. She wore reading glasses and looked like the picture of childish inquisitiveness.

_"Bruder."_

_"Ja?"_ He knew that she spoke no English, and the garbled three year old speak that she had wasn't terribly easy to understand in German.

She seemed to understand that he wouldn't understand her point if she spoke, so she simply tugged his sleeve again. _"Komm."_ So Miles obeyed, letting Franziska lead him down the hallway and into her room.

Franziska had no toys or picture books in her room, only a tall bookshelf full to the brim with law books and a mahogany desk with nothing on its surface. The room itself was barren and brown and it looked more like a prison cell than a three year old's room. He felt a pain in his chest, recalling the room in America that had once been his, the room that had photos of him and his father on the walls and had his favorite books on the shelves and a soft, red rug that he liked to lie on and stare at the ceiling.

But Franziska's room was nothing like that. That room was gone, as was the father in the photos on the walls. Franziska stomped her foot. _"Schau."_ The German - English dictionary he'd been reading the night before told him that that meant 'look.' She had opened a drawer in the desk and was pointing to a pile of papers...letters?

"_Für sie_," Franziska said promptly, taking them out and shoving into Miles' hands. He stared down at the small envelopes and the familiar scribbly print that had written out the address. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach. The return address was an American address, and the name on it was Phoenix Wright.

Franziska watched him curiously. "Who….is….Phoenix Wright?"

He turned around and stared at her. "You know English?"

She shook her head. _"Ich verstante nur ein bisschen Englisch."_

"Only a little, then? You're really smart for a three-year-old." The compliment sounded hollow, but it was all he could manage when it felt like he was going to melt staring down at the address written on the letters. "Did you get these from the mail for me?"

"Papa….have…garbage…" She frowned, obviously irritated at not being able to make the sentence.

"He was going to throw them out?" Franziska nodded vigorously. Miles sighed. "Danke, schwester." He couldn't bear to open the letters in front of him, because if he tore open the paper the feelings he'd been trying to burn into the ground for months would suddenly come spilling out. The life he'd left behind with the nightmarish death of his father was over. He would not open the letters.

He sat down on the bed, still looking at the letters with a sense of awe ringing through his head. "Who...is...Phoenix Wright?" Franziska repeated.

He would say that Phoenix was his friend, but was that really true anymore? Was he even worthy of a friend? It seemed as though everything back in America had simply been a happy dream. Perhaps he'd been Manfred von Karma's son all his life._ "Fruend,"_ he finally said. He didn't know the German past tense, so he'd have to just leave it at that. "Franziska?"

_"Ja?"_

"What happened to your mother?"

Franziska's expression didn't change. "Sick," she said, not a hint of sadness in her voice. "Not here now."

"Do you miss her? Because...my...my father...isn't here now, either...and all I can think about is that I'm never gonna see him again, and...Phoenix Wright...he was my...my best friend...and he'll never know what happened to me. He'd might as well be dead too." He knew that the three year old couldn't possibly understand, but somehow it felt freeing just to talk about it. "Franziska, I know you don't know what I'm saying, but...I don't want the letters. You can put them in the trash."

She looked puzzled. _"Warum?_ I….read….Phoenix...he say...miss you. _Warum nicht sie ihn vermissen?"_ she demanded.

"It's...complicated…" Miles realized that he sounded like an adult. His phrases sounded like an old man's words, not the words of a nine year old. "So, how much English do you know?" He added brightly, trying to change the subject.

Franziska pointed to herself. "Puh-ro-se-coo-tah." She hopped up onto the bed beside him, positioning herself on his lap.

"Prosecutor...yeah...do you know what the other kind of lawyer is called?"

"De-fens-uh."

"That's what my dad was. The best defense attorney in the world." He smiled down at her. He'd been her age once. "You must feel that way about your papa. He's a pretty good prosecutor, isn't he?" There was something very fragile and very terrifying about the child on his lap. She was only three, yet she already defined herself as prosecutor. There were law books lined up on her bookshelf instead of storybooks. She never had the childhood he had had.

"Franziska, do you want to hear a story?" She looked up at him curiously, her expression telling him to continue. "It's about the law. Once upon a time, there was a very happy boy. He never did anything to hurt anybody. One day, he hurt his leg and had to sit out from gym class." The tale felt awkward, but with every word that came out of his mouth he felt as though the burden on his chest was lessening.

"The happy boy sat in the nurse's office all through gym, and then people came running in yelling at him. He didn't know what he'd done wrong. Then…" He brushed over the horrible names they'd called Phoenix and the wads of paper that had been thrown in his face. "...The boy whose lunch money had been stolen stood up and yelled 'Objection!'" Franziska giggled at the caricature Miles made of the phrase. "He told the classroom that there was no evidence, that their court was a sham. The teacher was shocked. The students were shocked. The crying boy at the front of the class was shocked."

Franziska had gone limp in his lap as though she'd fallen asleep, but her eyes were still wide and her expression told him to go on. "So the boy went through why it couldn't have been the other boy, and after class he came up to him and thanked him for saving him. They played together at the sandbox the next day, and they ate together at lunch everyday…" He trailed off. "Do you know who the boy who yelled 'Objection!' was, Franziska?"

Franziska pointed to Miles. "That's right. It was me." He looked down, and it hit him that there were tears in his eyes. "I defended Phoenix Wright, like I was a real lawyer. But I don't know if I can be a real lawyer, anymore. Who am I, Franziska? Am I the defense or the prosecution? Am I your father's son or my father's son?" He knew there was no way she could understand, but somehow the words wouldn't stop.

Franziska pointed to him again. "Puh-roh-se-coo-tah."

He wiped his eyes, opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You're right, Franziska," he said softly. "I'll be the prosecution."

His little sister fell asleep in his arms in the next couple minutes, and he cried into her soft hair because it hit Miles Edgeworth that perhaps Franziska von Karma was the only person left in the world that loved him.

* * *

**this has been in my head for awhile now ;; it got pretty long, gomen**

**yeah i really like the idea of edgeworth and franziska being close as siblings and franziska sneaking him letters from phoenix**


End file.
